


Musical Chairs

by kisahawklin



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-31
Updated: 2009-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John expects Rodney to steal his chair. Especially if John's been sitting in it while he eats his breakfast and gotten it nice and warm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Musical Chairs

John expects Rodney to steal his chair. Especially if John's been sitting in it while he eats his breakfast and gotten it nice and warm. John knows that if he gets up to get a second mug of coffee, Rodney will be in his chair when he gets back. It's a given.

He doesn't expect Teyla to follow suit. It doesn't start until she's pregnant, but once it starts, it's like she stakes him out in the mess, waiting for him to get up for a refill. He's started to drink three cups of coffee in the morning, which means if he sits with his team for an hour or so (which he does, of course he does), he has to get up and go to the bathroom.

Ronon starts to take his chair then, and it's suddenly this strange game of musical chairs where they will steal the seat of whoever has left the table last. John takes Rodney's chair with extreme prejudice, and Rodney almost always steals Teyla's. Teyla has the ability to be sitting in your chair before you're even fully upright, and Ronon will knock you out of your chair if you so much as look away from your food.

Soon the entire mess hall gets into the action, and John's been displaced from the team table by a well-organized coup run by Lorne. Zelenka, Stackhouse and Keller take up the empty chairs while his back is turned, and he comes back to Evan lounging in his chair, eating the pudding cup he'd been saving for Rodney. Rodney looks pretty put out about it too.

He turns around and ousts Dusty Mehra when she gets into line for a second helping of potatoes, and it only takes a half a minute for the chatter at the table to come back online after he lounges back in his newly-acquired seat, sniffing Mehra's drink. It's the Athosian tea that's got more of a kick than coffee.

From then on, he starts to steal the chair of any marine he can see, and he gets a lot more gossip than he would have even guessed possible. There's a betting pool on whom he's dating, with Teyla coming in a distant second to _Rodney_, of all people, and they all give him secretive 'we've got your back, boss' looks when he denies being involved with anyone from Atlantis.

He finds out Zelenka and Lorne have been together for almost a year, and that Cadman paints her toenails different colors depending on her mood. That's not really surprising, knowing Cadman, but it is surprising to know that she and Katie dated for a while after she shared a body with Rodney. Apparently Rodney's relationship wasn't quite as exclusive as he thought.

Either Ronon is celibate, or he has threatened all of his lovers with violent deaths, because no one at any table is willing to talk about his love life. It turns out more than half the scientists knew about Kanaan, a result of several of them having been at the festival where Teyla and Kanaan hooked up for the first time. There were several hookups that night, including a really amusing pairing of Drs. Biro and Parrish. John almost wishes he had been there for that festival. It would have been nice to see Teyla genuinely happy.

There's more speculation about Rodney than anyone else, once John convinces people they're not together (and that takes a lot more effort than it should). There's a betting pool on how long Keller will last. John doesn't even think about putting a bet in. He does bet on how long it will be before Rodney has to save their collective asses with some crazy, untested theory again (twelve days - it's a running pool, he always bets twelve days, and he's won three times so far).

He doesn't know what people bet on about him besides his disgustingly barren love life, and he's pretty happy not knowing. He's pretty sure that there's a running bet on how long it is between suicide missions (it's been months since his last, he's not nearly as gung ho to kill himself as everyone seems to think) and maybe something about what he gets in the packages from Earth (chocolate covered espresso beans from his brother... for Rodney).

He ousts Zelenka to talk policy with Lorne one afternoon. The Marines have been grumbling about the breadth of the patrols; with the sophistication Rodney's built into Atlantis's sensors, he's thinking they can cut out the patrols of the uninhabited parts of the city.

Lorne grins at him and they sketch out new routes on a couple of napkins until Chuck comes running into the mess and hands John a wad of cash. _Shit_, John thinks, _I didn't even know there was anything going on._

John taps his earpiece. "Rodney," he says in his harshest tone of voice. "What the hell have you done now?"

_"What are you talking about, Sheppard?"_ Rodney answers his abrupt greeting with a washed-out, tired-sounding sarcasm. _"Did something blow up?"_

"I just won the pool again," John says, flipping through the bills. There's got to be several thousand dollars in the wad of cash. "Which means you did something based on a lucky guess and prayer and I wasn't even..."

Chuck's waving his arms wide enough to land a seven-forty-seven and Lorne's making slashing gestures across his neck. Too little, too late, and John plants his face firmly in his hands to avoid using them to choke his second in command.

_"No, Colonel,"_ Rodney sighs in his ear, and everyone else's on the admin channel, since that's what John had hailed him on. _"I have done absolutely nothing."_ He clicks off and John can feel the eyes of everyone in the mess on him.

"Chuck," he says menacingly, turning to glare. Chuck gulps. "I'm not in any betting pools except 'Rodney saves the day,' so what's going on?"

Chuck glances at Lorne and Lorne nods almost imperceptibly. "Sir, there's a bet under your name. On when Dr. McKay and Dr. Keller were going to break up. Sir."

"Lorne," John says, turning his glare on the major.

"Sir," Lorne answers, and John raises his eyebrows. He doesn't want to make it an order, but he will if he has to.

"Actually, sir," Chuck breaks in, and the feeling that the two of them are working him is starting to bug John. "Yours is the only name on the pool."

"What?" John asks, swiveling back around to stare at Chuck.

"Well, sir," Lorne says, and now John knows they're doing this on purpose; they're grinning like fools even in the face of his most formidable scowl. "Pretty much everyone who bet figured the day McKay and Keller broke up would be your lucky day."

John rolls his eyes. "Chuck, I'm sure you know who actually won. Give this to them."

"No sir," Chuck counters, putting his hands up when John tries to pass him the huge wad of cash. "Every bet on the books is Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard." He steps back and then takes off at a power-walk speed that would impress McKay. Maybe it's a Canadian thing.

By the time he's turned around to give Lorne what-for, the major's standing with lunch tray in hand, the new patrol route napkins sticking out of his shirt pocket like silk pocket square. "I'll just type these up, sir," he says and hightails it away.

John glances at his watch. They've spent the entire afternoon, and the early dinner shift will be coming in any moment. Whether or not Rodney shows up should be a decent assessment of his mood. John grabs a bottle of water and lurks at a table in the back, waiting for his team.

The mess fills up, small clutches of people huddling together, most sparing a glance for him before turning back to their food and chattering away. Teyla joins him, sitting at the head of the table to his left. He steals her pudding cup, and she smiles knowingly at him. They talk about babysitting and the next Athosian festival and the upcoming mission to M3X-599. Ronon joins them, sitting across from John, an extra jello cup on his tray.

Zelenka sits next to Ronon, and Lorne on Zelenka's side - just out of John's reach, wisely. The table is full except for one chair, and no one else approaches them, though everyone passing by looks at the empty seat.

The mess is three-quarters full by the time Rodney slouches in, grabbing a tray and waiting too patiently as the line crawls forward. The mess fills up rather suddenly; a sudden influx of people fill up most of the remaining tables and empty spots. Lorne and Zelenka exchange a glance and John thinks maybe he can let Lorne's stupidity regarding the betting pool slide. A little.

Major Teldy is in front of Rodney in line and seems to strike up something of a conversation. Rodney answers her but doesn't seem to expound on anything, so she pats his shoulder lightly before wandering off to sit with her team.

John catches Rodney's eye as he rolls off the line, a tray with nothing but a dollop of mashed potatoes, a couple of lonely pieces of broccoli, and a cup of coffee on it in his hands. Rodney nods at him, glancing at the team table but walking by, heading for the only empty table in the mess. John starts to stand up, but Teyla puts a gentle hand on his arm and he stills, watching Rodney pick his way through the tables to sit in solitude.

A squad of marines comes running full tilt into the mess, grabbing every seat at the empty table and filling in several of the open spots between Rodney and the team. Rodney turns, scanning the mess, and makes a beeline for Dr. Simpson's table.

Dusty saves the day, sliding smoothly into the open seat just before Rodney can set his tray down. Her insincere, "Sorry, Doc," rings louds and clear in the hall. Rodney frowns and heads off to the seat she vacated to beat him to the punch. Marie beats him to it, scurrying over from where she was picking at the local fruit.

Rodney heads to one of the only other open seats in the mess, and John's not sure if he's insulted or amused at Rodney's single-mindedness at not joining the team for dinner. Stackhouse plops down heavily in the seat Rodney's gunning for, and Rodney changes tack again. Every time he does, someone sits before he can get there. It's like a game of Chinese checkers in reverse.

Rodney gives up after Woolsey beats him to a seat at the botanists' table, and stomps over to the team table. He slams his tray down so hard a piece of broccoli bounces off. "You did this," he says, pointing an accusing finger at John.

John raises his eyebrows. Even if he could have planned something that intricate (and really, if Rodney can't read Lorne and Zelenka's handiwork by now, John isn't going to point it out), it's not like he would have had time to implement it in the forty minutes between his embarrassing radio transmission and Rodney's arrival in the mess.

Zelenka starts talking about the possibile ZPM factory on M3X-599, and the strange lull of the mess falls away as they discuss what they're planning to do with the theoretical ZPMs. Rodney's animated fork-waving starts shortly after, and John knows things are going to be okay when he pushes the pudding cup Rodney's way, and he picks it up without even looking, like he'd been tracking it since he sat down.


End file.
